The spotlight found him center stage, where he quietly settled in behind the microphone. Guest performer Mark Barden, a Newtown resident and accomplished career musician, used few words, and let his guitars do the talking Saturday, March 22, at the Flagpole Radio Café, a local production now in its sixth season.

Audience members may recognize her name as part of the Wainwright legacy in pop and folk music. And Sloan Wainright (above) — sister of Loudon Wainwright III, and aunt to Martha and Rufus Wainwright, and Lucy Wainwright Roche of The Roches — has plans to thrill the next Flagpole Radio Café audience with her clever and highly personal songwriting and huge contralto voice. She will be supported by longtime friend and guitarist Steven Murphy, and Newtown-based vocalist and percussionist Cadence Carroll (below) at the February 8 show.

Deborah Henson-Conant, who headlined Flagpole Radio Café in February 2012, will return to the stage of Edmond Town Hall Theatre to open the sixth season of the radio-style variety shows on September 28.

Beginning Friday, July 19, local public broadcasting stations will air a one hour PBS special called “Concert for Newtown,” a community event that brought together the people of Newtown in song, spirit and common purpose in the aftermath of the Sandy Hook School shooting.